The daughter of an Oscar-winner, she was destined for
stardom. Despite acclaim for her acting, it's her bizarre private life
that keeps her in the headlines. Vial of blood anyone?
Angelina Jolie Voight was
born in Los Angeles, California. Her father Jon Voight was an
established Hollywood actor, who had earned worldwide fame for his
performances in 'Midnight Cowboy', 'Deliverance' and 'Coming Home' - the
latter winning him an Oscar.
Angelina’s mother was the
part-Iroquois, part-French actress and model Marcheline Bertrand, who
now, incidentally, works as Angelina’s manager. Angelina’s parents split
up before she was two-years-old, and her mother moved back to the East
Coast with Angelina and her brother James, where they lived in the
Palisades, in the state of New York.
Despite her parents’
divorce, Angelina remembers her childhood as being a happy one. She was a
huge 'Star Trek' fan, and showed her unusual tastes even at an early
age, by having a crush on Mr Spock! Her taste in pets was highly
original too, and she collected snakes and lizards. Her favourite snake
was called Harry Dean Stanton, and her favourite lizard was called
Vladimir.
At school, she joined a gang called the Kissy Girls,
who hunted boys down and kissed them until they begged for mercy - until
the school called a halt and the gang broke up! Money was tight whilst
Angelina was growing up, but Marcheline made a point of taking her
children to the movies as often as possible. Angelina claims that these
family movie outings were what first inspired her to dream of becoming
an actress.
When Angelina was 11, the family moved
back to Los Angeles. Angelina decided to get serious about her dream of
becoming an actress and enrolled for acting lessons at the prestigious
drama academy, the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. But she didn’t enjoy
her years at Beverly Hills High School, where she was constantly teased
for wearing glasses and braces and for being so skinny. She also tried
to get work as a model, but was turned down for being too short, too
thin and too scarred. The teasing and rejection she experienced during
her early teenage years had a disastrous effect on her sense of
self-esteem, and at the age of 14, she dropped out of high school. She
dyed her hair purple, moved in with her punk rocker boyfriend, adopted a
Gothic dress code of black, black and more black - but more seriously,
began to self-harm and cut herself. She even once asked her boyfriend to
draw a blade along her jaw line - and still has a faint scar to mark
the occasion.
At the age of 16, Angelina split up with her punk
rocker boyfriend, and decided to revive her childhood dreams of becoming
an actress. She moved into an apartment opposite her mother, and
secured her first on-stage role, as a German S&M dominatrix! For the
first time ever, she also began to make the peace with her father. She
realised that when it came to acting, he had a great deal to teach her.
With her braces and glasses gone, she even succeeded in landing work as a
model, and even appeared in the video for Meat Loaf’s 'Rock’n’Roll
Dreams Come Through'. She also appeared in promo videos for Lenny
Kravitz and the Rolling Stones.
Jolie’s
brother James (who now called himself James Haven) had pursued his
ambition of going to film school, and Angelina gained her first taste of
screen acting by starring in no less than five of her brother’s student
films. She made her movie debut proper in 1993, when she was offered a
starring role as Casella “Cash” Reese, acting alongside Jack Palance in
'Cyborg 2'. Angelina’s role capitalised on her screen charisma and
brash, upfront sex appeal, and before long she was offered another plum
role in 'Hackers', a sci-fi computer thriller. Whilst on set shooting
Hackers, she met British actor Johnny Lee Miller, of 'Trainspotting'
fame, who played a computer wizard on the run from the police. Jolie and
Miller worked closely together (she played a member of his team) and,
before long, the couple were announcing their engagement in the press.
The
Hollywood gossip columnists ventured the opinion that Jolie’s marriage
was all part of her quest to find some stability in her life, since
she’d lacked a father figure whilst she was growing up. But she and
Miller were an outlandish and unconventional couple, and Jolie wasted no
time in telling the press all about their exploits - in bed and out of
it! Her professional life began to blossom, and the offers to star in
new films started flooding in. Jolie co-starred with David Duchovny of
'X-Files' fame in the glitzy thriller, 'Playing God'; this film also
starred Timothy Hutton, whom she also dated some time later.
Then
came a road movie called 'Mojave Moon', where she played a young girl
called Eleanor Rigby, who falls in love with Danny Aiello - who happens
to be in love with Eleanor’s mother (played by Anne Archer). Next came
'Foxfire', where she played a teenage girl who belonged to a gang who
set out to kill a teacher who is bothering them at high school. By now,
the major producers in Hollywood had begun to notice that Jolie was able
to bring an impressive palette of emotions to her acting, and she began
to be offered more complex and demanding parts.
In 1997, she
played the role of George Wallace’s wife, in the biographical movie,
'George Wallace', which told the story of the segregationist Governor of
Alabama who was shot and paralysed during his campaign to become
President, a performance which achieved considerable critical acclaim.
But whilst her career was going from strength to strength, her private
life was starting to fall apart. Johnny Lee Miller was finding her
emotional excesses harder and harder to deal with, especially whilst she
was playing the lead role in 'Gia', a biopic about the life of Gia
Carangi, a lesbian supermodel from the 1970s, who eventually died of
AIDS. Jolie was awarded a Golden Globe for her performance in this movie
- and to celebrate, she jumped into a swimming-pool whilst fully
clothed, ruining her expensive designer ball gown. Eventually, Miller
decided he couldn’t take any more, and the couple finally split.
In
the wake of her marriage bust-up, rumours were flying about Jolie’s
sexuality, and she fanned the flames by openly admitting that she was
bisexual. She even confessed to having a relationship with the actress
Jenny Shimizu. None of this distracted her from her work, however, and
she was soon starring in a comedy drama about air traffic controllers,
called 'Pushing Tin'. Her co-stars were John Cusack and Billy Bob
Thornton, and by the time the film wrapped shooting, she was already in
love with Thornton, who was 15 years older than her. Once again, Jolie
enjoyed an outrageous, high-profile romance, with Thornton openly
admitting that he liked to wear Jolie’s underwear, because it made him
feel closer to her!
Just as she found happiness in her private
life, Jolie also struck gold in her career. She accepted the role of a
mental asylum inmate in 'Girl, Interrupted', co-starring with Winona
Ryder, and won an Oscar for her stellar performance. The Oscar ceremony
was marred by rumours that she’d had an incestuous relationship with her
own brother - which Jolie denied. She went on to tell the press that
she’d only ever slept with a handful of people.
Next
came Jolie’s first blockbuster role - 'Tomb Raider'. This was probably
her most challenging role to date, for she not only had to learn how to
speak with an English, upper-class accent, but also had to master a wide
range of physically demanding disciplines, including kick-boxing,
street fighting, yoga, ballet, car-racing and dog-sledding. Her
character Lara Croft was faced with the challenge of defeating the
illuminati who were trying to use a magic triangle in order to control
Time - and interestingly, the role of her English upper-class father was
played by her real-life father, Jon Voight. Lara Croft marked Jolie’s
real breakthrough as a big Hollywood name in her own right - even though
she failed to win an Oscar on this occasion.
Having reached a
peak in her career, Jolie then decided to pursue her humanitarian
interests and began to become more and more involved in campaigns to
help people in the Third World. In 2001, she adopted a Cambodian child
named Maddox, and was made a Good Will Ambassador for the United States.
She took her role very seriously indeed, and took time out from her
acting career to visit Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Tanzania and the Western
Sahara.
She began campaigning for peace in troubled Sri Lanka,
got involved in helping refugees from Chechnia and Thailand, and donated
$5 million to an environmental wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia. When she
turned her attention back to her career, she was offered the chance to
make 'Tomb Raider 2', for which she was paid a staggering $12 million.
Although
she was flying high in her work, her private life was in trouble again,
and Billy Bob Thornton left her in May 2002. She subsequently claimed
he was far more interested in his career than he was in her and Maddox,
whilst she was more keen to balance family life and her philanthropic
interests with striving for box-office success. After filming Tomb
Raider 2, Jolie bought herself a house in Buckinghamshire, and was
occasionally seen out on the town with her ex-husband Johnny Lee Miller.
She
continued to give a considerable amount of time to the United Nations,
as well as working hard at her career. After the highly successful Tomb
Raider sequel, she accepted a part in 'Beyond Borders'. Here she played
the daughter of a wealthy businessman who meets a visionary doctor and
travels with him to war-ravaged Africa to help save lives - it sounded
very much like a case of Jolie’s art imitating her own life. Somehow,
she even found the time to write a book, called 'Notes from My Travels',
which was published in 2003.
In 2004, she starred in 'Taking
Lives', where she played an intuitive detective, and co-starred with
Ethan Hawke. Hawke’s marriage to Uma Thurman collapsed around the same
time, and Jolie was blamed - but she denied the rumours, and was later
proved right.
Jolie then took a voiceover role of a glamorous
fish called Lola in 'Shark Tale', rapidly followed by the futuristic
period piece, 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow', where she played a
sexy pilot captain. By coincidence, Jolie had recently gained her
pilot’s license, although on this occasion, she didn’t fly the plane for
real, but acted mostly against empty screens.
Sadly,
Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow wasn’t a great box office hit -
and nor was 'Alexander', Jolie’s next film. Here, she played Olympias,
the mother of Alexander the Great, who inspires him to become a great
leader and empire builder. But the offers kept coming for Jolie to star
in new pictures. After starring in 'The Fever', a political piece
directed by Vanessa Redgrave’s son, Carlo Nero, she was offered the
starring role in 'Mr and Mrs Smith', where she was cast opposite Brad
Pitt.
They played a bored couple whose lacklustre marriage gets a
shot in the arm when they discover that they are both secret assassins
who have been hired to kill each other. Improbable though the plot
sounded, the film was a massive hit - not least perhaps because romance
had once again blossomed for Jolie during the shooting of the movie, and
Brad Pitt’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston broke up around the same time.
Although
rumours ran rife, Jolie and Pitt remained silent about their alleged
affair, and did not go public about their involvement until a full
twelve months later. By this time, Brad Pitt was fully embroiled in the
full horror of a high-profile Hollywood divorce. Jolie denied Aniston’s
claims that she was a marriage-wrecker, and told reporters: “I was just a
shoulder to cry on”.
Also during 2005, Jolie found time to get
involved in Live8 and also visited post-earthquake Pakistan. She also
adopted Zaharah Marley, a little Ethiopian girl as a sister for Maddox,
and to her delight, Brad Pitt decided to adopt both children as his own.
And in May 2006, Angelina also gave birth to her own child by Brad
Pitt, Shiloh Nouvel, who was born in Namibia whilst the couple were over
in Africa.
With Brad Pitt, Jolie has finally found a partner
with whom she can share her humanitarian goals and ideals, as well as
her dazzling Hollywood success. Whilst it’s certain that the twin
challenges of her motherhood and her charity work will continue to take
up much of Jolie’s time, the movie offers just keep coming. 2006 has
seen the premiere of 'The Good Shepherd', directed by Robert de Niro,
which tells the story of the history of the CIA through the eyes of a
key operative (played by Matt Damon). But Jolie herself confesses: “It’s
getting harder and harder to go back to work after time with children
and my United Nations projects.”
In 2007, Jolie made her
directorial debut with the documentary 'A Place in Time', which captures
the life in 27 locations around the globe during a single week and
features fellow actors such as Jude Law, Hilary Swank, Colin Farrell and
Jonny Lee Miller. She also voiced the of part Grendel's mother in the
animated adaptation of Anglo-Saxon epic poem 'Beowulf', directed by
Robert Zemeckis.
An Oscar-winning actress, humanitarian
ambassador, femme fatale, author, pilot and now mother, Jolie has proved
herself brilliantly adept at juggling her many roles - and hopefully
will continue to do, for many years to come.
Jolie
has not let her busy career hold back her plans for an expanding brood,
and on 15 March 2007, she adopted Pax Thien from Vietnam, who was
three-years-old at the time.
In May 2008, Jolie announced that
she was once again pregnant with twins, and her and Brad Pitt's
children, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, were born by caesarean
section in Nice, France, on 12 July 2008.
Her role in Clint
Eastwood's drama 'Changeling', based on real-life events, which
premiered at Cannes in 2008, earned the 35-year-old her second Academy
Award nomination.
The film also saw her nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen
Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of Christine Collins, a woman who
is reunited with a boy who is said to be her son, but who is in fact a
stranger.
She took a two year break from filming after
'Changeling', only to return in 2010's 'Salt', a thriller in which she
starred alongside Liev Schreiber.
Despite receiving mainly
negative reviews, Jolie's next film, 'The Tourist', saw her being
nominated once again for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a
Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
It seems even when she is attached to a box-office flop, she emerges smelling of roses.
Filmography
Actor Title Year Role Notes
Lookin' to Get Out 1982 Tosh As Angelina Jolie Voight
Cyborg 2 1993 Casella "Cash" Reese Direct-to-video film
Without Evidence 1995 Jodie Swearingen
Hackers 1995 Kate "Acid Burn" Libby
Love Is All There Is 1996 Gina Malacici
Mojave Moon 1996 Eleanor "Elie" Rigby
Foxfire 1996 Margret "Legs" Sadovsky
True Women 1997 Georgia Virginia Lawshe Woods TV film
George Wallace 1997 Cornelia Wallace TV film
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film
Nominated—Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or Movie
Playing God 1997 Claire
Gia 1998 Gia Carangi TV film
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Female Actor – Miniseries or Television Movie
Nominated—Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or Movie
Hell's Kitchen 1998 Gloria McNeary
Playing by Heart 1998 Joan National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Award for Breakthrough Performance
Pushing Tin 1999 Mary Bell
The Bone Collector 1999 Amelia Donaghy
Girl, Interrupted 1999 Lisa Rowe Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Supporting Female Actor
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress
Gone in 60 Seconds 2000 Sara "Sway" Wayland
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 2001 Lara Croft Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance
Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress
Original Sin 2001 Julia Russell/Bonny Castle
Life or Something Like It 2002 Lanie Kerrigan
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life 2003 Lara Croft
Beyond Borders 2003 Sarah Jordan
Taking Lives 2004 Illeana Scott
Shark Tale 2004 Lola Voice
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 2004 Francesca "Franky" Cook People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Action Star
Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
Alexander 2004 Olympias
Mr. & Mrs. Smith 2005 Jane Smith Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Action Star
Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Movie Star
The Good Shepherd 2006 Margaret "Clover" Russell
A Mighty Heart 2007 Mariane Pearl Santa Barbara International Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance of the Year
Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead
Nominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year
Nominated—NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress – Motion Picture
Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Leading Female Actor
Beowulf 2007 Grendel's mother
Kung Fu Panda 2008 Master Tigress Voice
Wanted 2008 Fox People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Action Star
Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance
Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Movie Star
Changeling 2008 Christine Collins Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Saturn Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actress
Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Leading Actress
Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama
Nominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year
Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Leading Female Actor
Salt 2010 Evelyn Salt Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Action Star
Nominated—People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Movie Star
Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Actress
The Tourist 2010 Elise Clifton-Ward Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
Kung Fu Panda 2 2011 Master Tigress Voice
Director Title Year Notes
A Place in Time 2007 Documentary
In the Land of Blood and Honey 2011 Also writer and producer
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture
Producers Guild of America Stanley Kramer Award
Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Nominated—NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing – Motion Picture
